Oooft! Yesterday was a huge day for this little chicken. As a highly sensitive person who is definitely not designed to do and do and do all day long yesterday saw me doing a little bit too much. How do I know? I got into bed at 7:30 pm and passed out almost immediately (something I am rarely able to do).
The day started with a 5:30 am alarm that woke me from my sleep. I was already 95% packed from the night before and my jobs were simply to drink water, wake my body up with some gentle yoga, eat breakfast and get out of the apartment of our inner city, multi-storey building by 7 am.
By 7:05 we'd worked out that the tram we wanted to catch wasn't running (for that day only!) and so we started walking towards parkrun (or first major stop for the day) to pick up a different one. Success! We were on and off our backup tram easily and at parkrun a whole 30 minutes early - as planned.
We searched for a cab rank and found none.
We searched for nearby Ubers on their Live Tracker and found none hovering near enough to have us feel safe to use them for our tight turnaround after parkrun.
We settled on the plan of me running under 30 minutes for our (usual) Saturday morning 5km run (that happened to be in a different location) and then immediately after scanning my athlete barcode we would walk straight back to the same tram spot. That was reasonable given that that parkrun is a flat course and on a good day I can run a course like this in 25 minutes.
Our plan worked a treat, although I didn't enjoy Albert Melbourne parkrun nearly as much as I would have if we didn't have a plane to catch a few hours later. Lesson learned.
Once delivered to less than one block away from our apartment it was shower time. And after a quick look over I left feeling grateful for the two-bedroom, spacious little place on the 42nd floor we'd called home for the best part of a week. We cruised slowly to the SkyBus terminal arriving early and managed to jump on an earlier bus than expected. Another win.
In 25 minutes flat we were at the Domestic Terminal ready to fly Jetstar to Canberra; our final destination on this long, multi-city loop trip. There was, again, little-to-no wait for our bag drop; the longest thing was waiting to be notified of our departure gate. It seems airports have realised they can make more money by making passengers wait in the area with food outlets and shops rather than down at the gate! Clever but sneaky!!
The flight was fine but it was delayed by more than 30 minutes which added to the "I'm-stressed-because-I'm-doing-too-many-things" feeling I'd had all morning. Also, I'd arranged to meet up with a darling friend in Canberra who I rarely see and I knew that this delay was either 1. Going to keep her waiting or 2. Going to cause us to miss doing our bushwalk together.
After extra delays getting off the plane and then a much longer than expected process to pick up our hire car, we were finally on our way to our Canberra accommodation about 45 minutes later than I'd hoped. Thankfully, my friend is rarely thrown by anything and had space to make her afternoon still work and was just as excited to see me as I was her. I love friends who make my life easy, especially when I'm stressed out (even if it is self-induced).
Our altered plan also worked because Brad was willing to check in and settle in at the Tourist Park without me and then come pick me up from the top of Black Mountain an hour later. Bless him 😊
The time with my friend was divine, even if we couldn't find the right route through the bush and had to backtrack (she was course marking for a running event the next day). It's friends like her that reinforce my belief that soul mates are a thing. When I met her several years ago it literally felt like I found her. It's like my soul already knew her soul and we were both just in bodies that we unfamiliar to each other.
After hugging her goodbye in the middle of the bush, she continued on and I walked very fast up the steep hill I thought would take me to where I hoped Brad would be. 10-15 sweaty minutes later and I was jumping in our RAV4 hire car headed for my brother's place. We were greeted at the door by my sister-in-law who was holding my now 11-month-old nephew who was all smiles.
To my delight, it took no more than a minute after arriving that she handed me this dear little one and I got my first cuddle with him since he was born 🤗
Over a few hours we talked, we checked out the changes to their house and the progress on their gardening, we ate dinner - all constantly interrupted by the toddler, of course 😂 While hanging out with a very small child is something I find challenging, it's also amazing to watch him as he takes in the world and all the new things.
I realised many years ago that, while I adore children, I didn't want to birth or raise any of my own. In hindsight, I can clearly see the wisdom of surrendering to that choice. Without it, I don't think I would have found Brad - who I adore - and there's no way I would have the time and energy freedom to travel and study as much as I do.
It's good for me to hang out with tiny humans because I spend so much time, in my personal and professional life, having deep, intentional, private 1:1 conversations that are rarely interrupted. I think the contrast is good for me; it reminds me how most people live 😅
When my SIL was looking very tired and I'd done enough washing up to feel like I'd done something useful (other than holding the bub in between the many things that needed to be done) we made a plan for the next day and then said our goodbyes.
Brad drove our weary selves back to our accommodation 20 minutes away and I did the bare minimum of unpacking before showering and then pouring myself into bed.
It was a big day. A great day but a very, very big day.
Black swans and their babies (called cygnets) on the lake at Albert Park where we went to parkrun, in Melbourne, on this massive, wonderful day.